Tag Archives: geocache

The 9th and last day on the road was a pretty straight shot of driving, but we had a chance to sit down for a yummy breakfast and find a geocache before we left Sturbridge.

The small diner next to our motel, Annie’s Country Kitchen, received rave reviews online, so we decided to investigate before check out time. I had a bit of déjà vu there that leads me to wonder if I had eaten there on a family road trip with a stop in Sturbridge in the past. The food was delicious, and the place was packed! When we left, the line was well out the door. I ordered a short stack of blackberry crisp pancakes (with crumb topping cooked in!) and a side of homefries, and Kevin had a corned beef hash omelette.

Blackberry Crisp Pancakes—Even with a short stack, I brought one of this mega-cakes home!

Kevin's Omelette

On the way to the highway, we stopped to find a geocache at an unexpected monument/sculpture/park within eyesight of the interstate. It was an easy find, but we stuck around for a moment to take a closer look at the sculpture on the side of the road. It was an odd location for such a memorial. I looked the names up online, and could only find that the individuals were athletes who may have been run over by a truck.

Sculpture

We then hit the road to make good time back to Pennsylvania.

MA to PA

Our only detour on the route back was in New Jersey, just so we could be sure we found a geocache in every state. We got off the highway and found a pulloff near a trailhead. Walking down the trail into the thick woods, we were already stuck in the mud by the time we realized how wet the area was! So, since our shoes were already completely submerged, we carried on down the path. We found the geocache near this cool old car.

Cache Car

Finally, we returned home, fairly exhausted but quite content. Our animals were happy to have us back, and I think my in-laws were quite relieved to be done trying to give our enormous rabbit medicine twice a day. The trip was a success, involving adventures of epic proportion each day. Maine is certainly a state of great natural beauty, in an era when many states seem to have lost some of that valuable trait.

Like this:

The second day of our road trip got off to an early start as we unexpectedly woke up in time to see the sunrise from my sister’s house. She is fortunate enough to live right on Casco Bay and have great views of both the sunrise and the sunset! We hauled ourselves outside just in time to see the mellow colors reflect off the bay through the fog that had followed us up the coast.

An egret stands stoically in Casco Bay.

While my sister and her family went for a run, I was antsy to go for a bike ride in the morning. My cycling skills are remedial at best, but my in-laws bought me a great red mountain bike for Christmas so I couldn’t wait to try riding it in another state! We took a morning jaunt through my sister’s neighborhood, out on the Casco Bay Bridge and onto the Mackworth Island causeway just down the bay. Click here to read more!

As you probably noticed, posts were a little sparse around here for the last week. (If not for the wonders of technology and auto-posting, there would have been none at all!) The reason behind my absence from the cyber world was that we were on an epic road trip up the east coast to explore three areas in Maine! Instead of buying gifts for our wedding anniversaries, we like to save the money to do something awesome together. So, for our second anniversary (which is actually tomorrow), we packed up the car and headed out of the Valley! Our trip was seriously non-stop filled with activity and adventure, and I took a gazillion pictures, so I’ll be posting about each day separately.

For starters, we set out on the road on 9.24 to make the long drive to Falmouth, ME, near Portland.

We took turns making the 8 hour drive from the Lehigh Valley to Falmouth.

Falmouth was our first destination because one of my sisters lives there with her husband and son. We hadn’t yet visited them in Maine, so when they invited us to spend a couple of nights at their home on Casco Bay, we gladly accepted!

To make our travel more interesting, we plotted out a route of geocaches along the way. So, when we stopped to stretch our legs, we could focus on something fun instead of just walking in circles. Our first find was at the Connecticut visitor’s center in Danbury, where we stopped to eat the Jumbars sandwiches we brought along. We also found another just off of I84 on the side of the road.

The third cache was located near Walden Pond in Massachusetts (where Thoreau spent time writing). I saw the sign for the pond, got excited, and exited the highway without knowing where we were going. Well, it turned out the pond was quite a distance from the exit, but we looked at our GPS and found a geocache nearby at this beautiful nature area.

We never would have seen this beautiful park if not for the geocache!

After about a 3/4 mile walk through beautiful meadows, we found the cache hidden in a wooded area. It was a great place to stretch our legs and get a view of a different region’s landscape.

We were grateful for a beautiful spot to stretch our legs.

After a quick tick check (there were large signs warning about Lyme disease infected ticks in the area), we jumped back in the car to finish our drive. Just a short distance into Maine, we began seeing fog rising off rivers and inlets and a vivid sunset behind us.

Sun fading behind us.

The fog grew thicker as we moved up the coast, but broke just before we arrived in Falmouth. After a quick moment to settle in at my sister’s, we were off to Portland with her family to chow down on 5 Guys and see the nightlife of the town.